Chapter X: Blue Tailed Bandits
Ifaut was the first to wake up the next morning, almost back to her usual self after the previous day. Of course, not even a hundred peaceful nights could truly erase the grief that was now in her heart, but even one helped a little. On a positive note, she thought, she was just that little bit closer to understanding Sansonis’s feelings, one step on the bridge to empathy. She still had a long way to go, down a road she hoped she’d never see, one paved with loss and loneliness. She glanced down at Sansonis as he slept and blinked away a few tears of sympathy. Still, maybe she could help fix the shattered and twisted road he had already traversed. Maybe that was the reason why the two were kamaes. Or maybe it was a chance for redemption for what had happened to Saun, the boy so much like Sansonis. Whatever the reason, she doubted Cédes would tell her. This was something only she could figure out.
The sun had already been up for an hour. She yawned and stretched in the warm sunlight as a pleasantly cool breeze ruffled her hair and birds chattered like small children in the trees. All she needed to make this beautiful morning complete was something to eat. Now slightly more cheered, she kicked Sansonis playfully.
“Wakey wakey, sunshine!”
Sansonis groaned as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
Ifaut beamed down at him. “Can you wake the others?” she asked. “I’m gonna get some fruit to go with breakfast. You said you could get used to my cooking so I’m gonna hold you to it. Then you to me.” She laughed and within seconds she had melted away into the trees.
At the sound of Ifaut’s voice, Cédes’s eyes fluttered open and she emerged from a deep sleep into the real world. “I have found that it is almost impossible to stay sleeping with Miss Ifaut around,” she said, her voice tinged with affection, “especially with her infectious energy.”
“She’s very eager to please,” Stefi said as she woke up. Then she muttered to herself, “But a little crazy. Just like the ferrets.”
“Yes,” Cédes said, “Miss Ifaut is very kind, isn’t she? And she is quite skilled at cooking.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she had a crush on Sansonis!” Stefi laughed. “What with the way she never leaves his side and all! It’s so sweet,” she said in a semi-mocking tone clouded by sleep.
“I believe you are wrong,” Cédes said. “While Miss Ifaut has accidentally harmed Sansonis several times already, I do not think she wishes to crush him. That would be very out of character for her. Unless you mean by means of a particularly exuberant hug.”
“Dear Cédes,” Stefi said with a yawn and patted the Furosan’s head, “it’s a human expression. Now, how can I put this in your terms…?” She thought for a moment. “I know!” she said triumphantly, “‘I am of the opinion that Miss Ifaut is exhibiting strong signs of a romantic infatuation with Sansonis.’ Is that how you would have said it?”
A childish chuckle chortled up from Cédes’s throat and erupted into a laugh. “I could not have put it any better,” she choked out, her eyes watering. “I have had suspicions myself. I never said anything through fear that Rhaka had already arranged someone for Sansonis.”
Rhaka let out a low growl and slunk off to find his own food. Sansonis shuddered at the thought.
“Was that a joke?” Stefi asked.
“Yes. Am I getting better?” Cédes asked.
“Definitely.”
Just then Ifaut bounded up with a crash and tripped over her own feet, sending her armful of wild fruit tumbling into the dust before falling on top of it. As she lay unmoving in the dirt, she thought she could hear someone asking if she felt all right. All she could feel were warm tears of embarrassment pricking at the corners of her eyes.
She scrambled to her feet, trying her hardest to ignore the laughter of her friends as tears burned in her eyes. She snatched up her bag before hurrying off to the stream that marked their way.
But even the cold water couldn’t wash away the humiliation. Deep down she knew that her friends’ laughter was just a natural reaction. However, as she washed herself and changed, a small seed of doubt was planted in her mind. How could she help everyone, especially Sansonis, if she managed to trip over her own feet and ruin breakfast?
“I’m sorry, everyone,” she said as she shuffled back, her damp, dirty clothes clutched in one hand. The same breeze that had seemed so pleasant earlier turned her skin to ice.
“Don’t worry about it.” Sansonis hugged her, and she clung tight to him for warmth. “Stefi and I still have some food that we can eat. And I have something else for you.”
He let her go, opened his pack, and pulled out a blanket. He draped the it about her shoulders. She also found a battered straw hat amongst her belongings and put it on, more to hide her lingering embarrassment than to warm her head. Its floppy brim covered her ears completely.
Just as Sansonis finished handing out a breakfast of bread and dried meat, a cry sounded from the sky above them and a hawk-like bird glided serenely over the trees. It turned a piercing, golden eye to the group below it. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.
A dumbfounded silence descended upon the Fieretka. It was finally broken when Cédes spoke. “May somebody please tell me what that was?”
“A bird,” Stefi said. Then, “Sansonis, did you or Ifaut notice something about it? Something… weird?”
“Apart from the blue ribbons tied to its legs and the creepy way it looked at us?” Sansonis said, deliberately using sarcasm for Cédes’s benefit. He remembered how hard the subtleties of voice and tone had been for him to learn, not through conversation with his peers but by observation. “No, nothing weird about it at all.”
“That was sarcasm!” Cédes said, her voice full of pride. “So, a strange bird flew overhead, bearing blue ribbons and watching us. It makes me… uneasy.”
“Same here,” Stefi said. “I get the feeling someone’s looking for us. We’d better leave…”
Moments later Rhaka returned from his morning hunting. “I just observed a rather suspicious bird flying past that circled and seemed to observe me. Something about it concerned me so I returned here as quickly as possible.”
“That’s old news, dog-face,” Ifaut said.
Rhaka growled at her with disdain then turned to Stefi. “What do you wish to do?”
Stefi thought for a minute. “I say we follow it. You said yourself there aren’t any humans around here. So by rights there shouldn’t be anyone nearby except Furosans anyway, and now I’m curious. What do the rest of you think?”
“I believe you are correct. Many of us live scattered throughout the forest. Perhaps they may be able to help. I shall follow you,” Cédes said.
“My decision is the same as the white Furosan’s,” Rhaka said with a hint of contempt. “We have found another thing upon which we can agree.”
Cédes snorted derisively.
“I’ll follow you, my leader,” Sansonis said.
“And where Sansonis goes, I follow,” Ifaut piped up. “I hate to say this, Stefi, but according to the laws of the First I must protect him even against the orders of my superior, meaning you.”
“Then I’ll only need to convince Sansonis to go where I want you to,” Stefi said with a smile. “For my first order to our little group as leader, let’s follow that bird. Rhaka, lead on!”
As the Fieretka followed Rhaka’s last sighting of the strange bird, Stefi grew increasingly uneasy as their path strayed ever further from the stream. None of them really knew their way around these parts, as far as Stefi knew, and the thought of getting lost was ever-present on her mind. Even though she had since discovered that the denizens of the forest were, for the most part, far nicer than their human reputations suggested, other deadly enemies still lurked in the depths: cold, hunger, thirst, all ready to kill the unwary with no concern or pity.
Once the sun had begun its downwards journey, Cédes began to sing in a strangely eerie voice.
??
?Laure Musrem, Daga Te’a,” her clear, piercing voice sang. It sent a shiver down Stefi’s back and brought tears to her eyes even though she didn’t know what the words meant. Not that it really mattered; Cédes’s voice gave them a meaning unique to anyone who heard them.
“Te’n Laema, Feamat Mus, Soma Serne, Ue Sae Sem’la, Peper Ter-Ram Tela.”
As Stefi looked at the faces of her friends, she noticed all wore a different expression: Ifaut smiled at something only she could see; Sansonis bit his bottom lip and gazed into the distance; and Rhaka, from Stefi’s limited understanding of his very different facial expressions, looked sad yet hopeful with his mouth hanging slightly open. Cédes’s face remained blank.
Why is Cédes singing such a sad song? Gemmie asked.
It’s not sad, it’s hopeful and happy, Maya said.
“Look around, you two. I think you’re both right. It doesn’t matter what she’s saying, the words mean something different for everyone,” Stefi said and looked around once more. She was intrigued by how everyone was affected so differently. Different races, different feelings, but the same capacity for emotion. The same ability to feel love, hate, happiness, fear, hope. Even if they all looked different, some more so than others, was that really a reason for hatred? Inside, every one the same on a basic, emotional level. But how easily they could be manipulated by what people believed in on a religious level. She saw how even between her new friends rifts were beginning to form between the basic beliefs of Furosan and Otsukuné. And the closeness between Ifaut and Sansonis, not even bothering with the time-old preconceptions. Emotions are flexible, she realized. Teachings and ingrained beliefs, much less so.
Gradually, almost without noticing, Stefi found herself singing along with Cédes and it was then that she realized the others were singing too. Ifaut’s voice soared with the promise of a bright future while Sansonis could barely make himself heard over his kamae’s song that put a spring in her step and set her arms swinging. Rhaka emitted a sound Stefi could only hope was his way of singing. Either that or something was hurting him. Maybe it was both?
“Huh?” Ifaut exclaimed after a while. Everyone stopped. Everyone, that is, except the ferrets. “Listen carefully,” she said and flapped her arms in an over-exaggerated gesture of silence. At least, that’s what Stefi thought it must be. Or a poor impression of a bird. “You hear that? Someone else is singing,” she said, eyes wide and tail puffed with fright.
Stefi could still hear her two ferrets in her head, carrying on blissfully unaware. Suddenly it all made sense. “I think you might be hearing the ferrets,” she said. Her voice was quiet with uncertainty.
“Impossible…” Ifaut said, and her eyes appeared to grow even wider.
“No,” Cédes said. “This is beyond anything I know, though why should it not be possible? Maybe a small piece of what makes Stefi so unique is beginning to rub off on the rest of us.”
Everyone stopped talking and stood still, too enamored by the voices of the ferrets to do anything but listen. The high notes seemed to sparkle in the very air and brought everything into such sharp focus that it seemed the world itself was burning from within. Even the birds were silenced as the wind stilled. It seemed nature itself was silenced in awe.
Hey, what’s everyone staring at? Maya asked. The song of the ferrets ceased and everything eased back to the way it was.
“You and Gemmie,” Stefi said. “For just a moment they could hear your voices. It was amazing!”
“Yes,” Cédes said, “a most soothing and beautiful melody. If I were to die right now, I would die happy.”
We really touched them, didn’t we? Gemmie asked, humbled by what she and Maya had unwittingly accomplished.
Stefi nodded.
“A song truly sweeter than the music of the Three Sisters,” Rhaka said. “A song in a voice able to transcend the barriers of age, race, beliefs.” He glanced apologetically at Cédes when he said the last word.
After a few moments of profound silence, the bird they’d been following since morning decided to make another appearance. It descended from the sky, perched on the lower branches of a tall tree, and fixed the Fieretka with an oddly intelligent stare.
“You again!” Ifaut yelled and pointed an accusing finger. “What do you want?”
In reply, the bird, a raptor with a rather nasty beak, set about casually preening its broad wings as if it had nothing better to do.
“I think it’s watching us,” Stefi whispered so the bird wouldn’t overhear her. “I’m starting to think someone sent it to watch us…”
“Go away at once!” Ifaut said and followed her exclamation up with a few choice words that made Cédes cringe.
It answered with a piercing cry and, hoisting itself aloft with its broad wings, took off further into the forest.
“That’s what I thought!”
She had barely finished when a burst of movement came from the trees, erupting from every direction. Three figures appeared, the lower halves of their faces masked by blue bandanas, and formed a rough triangle that hemmed the Fieretka in. Surrounded.
“Cédes!” Stefi turned to grab the Furosan’s arm, only to clutch at emptiness. Cédes was gone.
“They took Cédes!” Her emotions roiled in a tempest of worry and anger. She gripped her staff tightly and prepared to fight. She noticed a flash of steel as their attackers drew knives from their belts. A long stick against knives? She had range, but once a knife gets in close enough…
Rhaka growled and bared his teeth in an angry snarl, taking up a protective position before Stefi, while Ifaut stepped in front of Sansonis. He pushed her gently aside.
“We’re in this together,” he said and patted her shoulder. The muscles tensed like coiled steel beneath his hand.
“These are Furosans,” Ifaut said. “We can’t hurt them.” She left her sword in its scabbard and took up and empty-handed fighting stance, her hands bobbing lightly before her face. Sansonis did the same.
“Somebody tell them not to hurt us!” Stefi said just as the three masked attackers flew forward.
The tensioned springs of Rhaka’s back legs exploded, propelling him towards the largest of the attackers. They both hit the ground hard and within a second Rhaka’s teeth were at the Furosan’s throat. The Furosan suddenly thought better than to try to take on what he originally thought was a dog and the fight drained from him as he went limp and played dead.
Ifaut became entangled with her target, engaged in a deadly dance to keep the knife from cutting her. Her hands flew as she parried repeated thrusts and checked low kicks, but not quickly enough. She felt a burning caress of steel across the soft flesh of her upper arm and screamed, more in anger than pain. She stumbled backwards and glanced to her right, only to see a terribly familiar expression descend upon Sansonis’s face.
“Don’t!” she yelled, all too aware of what it meant, but her voice was unable to penetrate the darkness.
With a staff thrust to the stomach that landed only through luck, Stefi sent her target reeling backwards, encouraged the whole time by a hollering Maya.
Duck, now step around ’em, not straight back, aim for the knife hand but keep him back, use your range! he whooped, strangely knowledgeable on armed combat.
Stefi spun around when she heard Ifaut’s yell just in time to see a Furosan propelled by an unseen force into the bushes as Sansonis looked on coldly. He staggered and fell to his knees.
“And I thought Ifaut was just exaggerating,” she said.
Stefi, turn now! Maya’s voice punctuated her thoughts. She turned just as her attacker came back for another round. As she raised her staff again, puffing from exertion, she heard a dull knock like wood on wood. The Furosan’s eyes stared in disbelief as it sank to the ground, dropping its knife and clutching its head. A pale outline, like a wavering spirit, shimmered behind the injured Furosan. Stefi recognized the face as it materialized.
“Cédes! You’re all right!” she shouted in relief and embra
ced her before she’d fully reappeared.
“Of course I am. I am sorry I had you worried like that. Let us first focus our attention on these little fools.”
“Sure. But why didn’t you tell me you could just disappear like that?”
“With my own abilities and those of Lidae, I can conceal the entire Mafouras kingdom. I just used the same principle to hide myself. I would have concealed all of us, but I had no time to prepare.”
Rhaka, still snarling, backed off his Furosan, and Ifaut helped a weakened Sansonis. She set him gently on the ground and made sure he was comfortable before she exploded without warning.
“What the firik were you three thinking?” she screamed as the three masked Furosans composed themselves and stood in a sorry looking group, eyes downcast. She scarcely noticed the shallow cut on her arm as she gesticulated wildly, stumbling through two languages as she continued to chastise and berate them. She tore off their bandanas in turn, revealing the startled faces of two young males and one young female, all even younger than Stefi. Scraps of blue ribbon adorned their tails, matching the color of their bandanas.
“You’re all just kids!” she screamed before launching into another tirade in her own language.
“That’s enough, Ifaut,” Stefi said as she laid her hand on Ifaut’s shoulder, plunging her into silence. “That’s an order.”
Ifaut stepped back and, growing ashamed of her rash behavior, stared at the ground.
“Please allow me to speak to them,” Cédes said calmly and levelly, the complete opposite of Ifaut. “Leuma, Reilos, Sohei, would you mind telling me why you attacked us?” she asked. There were no signs of anger in her quiet voice.
“Lady Cédes!” they all said simultaneously and fell to their knees, shaking.
“Not only did you almost cause grievous harm to my friends, one of you managed to injure Miss Ifaut.”
“That would be me…” the female, Sohei, said and stared at Ifaut with her brown, tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry. I accept whatever punishment you choose to give me, though I deserve nothing short of death.”
Ifaut took in a breath to fuel her next verbal assault but was checked by Sansonis. As he pulled her aside he noticed that she, too, was beginning to cry.
“Cédes, can you handle those three?” he asked. “Ifaut needs her arm looked at.” He led her away from the others and bandaged her arm with some cloth from his pack.
“After freeing you from the snare, getting rid of those hunters, and now this, that’s three you owe me now, isn’t it?”
A trace of a smile appeared on her face. “Yeah… I’m sorry I snapped like that. Pretty crazy, huh? Some princess I am.”
“Well, you have been under a lot of stress lately. Then we get attacked by a bunch of kids. Anyone would’ve gone off.”
Meanwhile Cédes was calmly trying to convince the three young Furosans that, indeed, they didn’t deserve punishment by death. “What are you three doing out here, far from home?” she asked.
“This is our home now,” Reilos, the slightly shorter male with messy blonde hair and a smattering of freckles, said.
“And why is that? You know there is always room back home.” She smiled and her red eyes twinkled.
“We prefer it out here,” Leuma said levelly, his gruff voice and mannerism reminiscent of Rhaka’s despite his young age.
“Yeah, Lady Cédes,” Sohei said. She stood up and appeared happier now that they had practically been forgiven. “We like it here. None of us have any family left so we thought we might as well go out into the world.”
Ifaut returned, her eyes still moist. “So you attack people? Why?”
“Sentinel told us of humans approaching. I guess he must have seen wrong,” Leuma said and held out his arm. The bird descended from a nearby tree, perched upon the Furosan’s leather-padded arm, and started preening again. “We acquire from humans who wander too close to Mafouras from Valraines and scare them off,” he continued. “Sorry we attacked you.”
“What do you mean acquire?” Stefi asked.
It’s how we get treasures! Gemmie said. Reilos echoed her a second later.
“What treasures?”
“The shiny gold discs humans are in possession of!” Sohei said and nodded to her two friends.
“What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is also mine!” the three Furosans said in unison. “The one, and only, Blue Tails!” They struck an odd pose that earned a bitter laugh from Ifaut and a chuckle from Stefi and Sansonis.
“Lady Cédes, now it’s our turn to ask something. What brings you and your friends so far from home?” Reilos said.
Cédes didn’t reply, but Ifaut slowly and deliberately removed her hat to reveal her Furosan ears and pulled her tail out from her shirt, glowering darkly all the while. “How could you mistake me for a human?” Her voice was level yet dripping with anger.
“A-Again we apologize,” Reilos stammered. “We’ll make up for this any way we can.”
“How about you give us someplace to stay and some of the shiny discs you’ve acquired?”
“Of course. What’s ours is ours. What’s ours is also yours.” he said and bowed before leading the Fieretka further into the forest.